Weak
by ghostlights
Summary: It had been glorious. He had been weak. ON HIATUS UNTIL DEC 06
1. Chapter 1

**WEAK**

Revised and revamped.

**Disclaimer: **None of these are mine. Maybe one day when I come into my full power, but till then, nothing.

It had started with a butterfly. He really should have guessed.

Sara had been assigned the case of a deceased male. No identification, no dna, no suspects, all he had, all they had was a butterfly lodged in his trachea. Grissom had been unable to immediately identify it by sight and had invited her to his townhouse that afternoon to research it using his books and specimens.

Therapy had been working for Sara. They'd had several slightly awkward conversations about it in passing from his office door but their interaction had taken a playful turn again and thinking about her didn't make him feel tired or confused anymore. Her smile had returned as well as her ability to distance herself from her work and he was glad. He didn't want to lose her but refused to analyse that thought beyond the surface.

This was - he realised, his first error.

The second had been actually letting her past his door when she arrived.  
It was mid-morning and she had showered and changed, wearing the same outfit as him, jeans and a t-shirt. Only his jeans weren't as form fitting and his t-shirt didn't cling to such enticing curves.

Standing on his step she offered him a smile of gratitude as he let her past him into the house's cool interior away from the gathering heat of summer. He could smell the last lingering scent of her shower gel as she entered.

He'd never had her in his home before, not without another person there to buffer their reactions, and as they had sat on his floor, backs resting against his sofa with various books and illustrations scattered around them he felt good, he relaxed.

An offer of coffee led to breakfast led to her full low groan of appreciation over a full stomach.

_He took her empty plate to the kitchen and scraped the remains of his own apple pancakes. Placing the dishes in his sink he searched his fridge for a carton of orange that actually contained the juice and poured a glass for each of them._

"_That was good Griss, Who'd've thought you could cook?" Sara smiled up at him and took the glass he offered._

"_I'm a man of many talents Ms Sidle." He told her solicitously, the innocent expression he wore made comical by the smirk that shone in his eyes. "Some merely hidden better than others."_

"_Hidden talents? I am intrigued Dr Grissom. But right now I need you for your well documented talents." She smirked back and pulled an oversized book onto her lap. "Come teach me something," as she patted a space on the floor next to her._

The teasing felt good, like finding himself inside a life he'd once had and lost. To sit so close and pour over the books with her- a secret hidden dream come to life.

He dropped himself unceremoniously beside her and reached across to smooth out the pages she was looking at. The illustrations it held had very little in common, beyond species, with her specimen and he carefully turned the pages explaining to her the differences and the specifics of her butterfly.

Oh, he told himself that it was innocent, the way he brushed her thigh with his, how he leaned into her to draw her attention to certain things he found interesting, touching her to get her attention, the way she smiled across at him, finding himself completely fascinated with her bottom lip.

He couldn't really berate himself for these things; he'd long ago accepted a certain amount of control would be lost when he interacted with Sara one on one.

But he had continued, completely ignoring social mores on personal space, maintaining contact even when he did not need her attention and becoming fixated on her bottom lip.

And when she had tried to move the mood away from his intense gaze on her and back to the professional, with a hesitant "Uh, Grissom.." he had moved in and satisfied his curiosity about that lip.  
And the wickedly long curve of her neck.  
And then even more.

He'd been weak.

That evening he had awoken with delicious aches clustered on his skin and the memory of her above him, sucking along his fingertips. He'd felt glorious. Triumphant, exalted in the hazy seconds before he reached for her and found only cold bed sheets.

"_This is a bad idea Grissom." The murmur came from beneath his lips but her hands were on his back. He pulled back to search past the uncertainty in her eyes. "The only bad thing about this is that I waited so long."_

That had been his last mistake, and the one that had cost him.

He checked his bed, the table beside it and his chest of drawers, the tables in the living room, kitchen counter tops, his answering machine and the mirror in his bathroom, but no note or message offering an explanation was found.

He knew there wouldn't be but couldn't stop himself. Wouldn't admit that he wanted there to be a note, an explanation, a good sign.

"_Are you sure about this?"_

"_Yes."_

All that was left then was an uncomfortable heat and uncertainty in his chest. He wanted to cry. He hadn't felt that since he was ten years old and realising for the first time that his parents, his life, would not be coming back to him ever again.

Mechanically, he had stripped the bed and put it in the wash with the clothes he had worn the previous night. Tidied away the hastily left texts still out in the living room and then stood under a hot shower for the better part of an hour soaping himself.

It was just water on his face.

That night he was off but had intended to stop by the lab to gather some texts from his office, only now the thought of running into Sara rolled in his stomach like bad coffee and he stayed home doing all that he could do with the information he had to hand. She hadn't called, hadn't made any attempt to contact him and he couldn't bring himself to reach back out to her.

The next night though, he had to go in and with every step into the lab he had simultaneously felt his heart harden and a thick lump form in his throat stealing his voice.

He refused be caught off guard and had arrived earlier than usual to give himself time to be at assignments before her.  
Let her come to him, this was his turf and he was strong there.

But when she had arrived in the room and looked at him like it was every other day, as though he had been the only one to have had the sweetest moment of his life ripped from him, something in him had ripped but he could never quite put his finger on what had been lost, only knowing that it could have been the most important part of him.

_The mid afternoon light made a valiant effort at infiltrating his room, casting patterns over his walls and possessions, over them, over her hand that lay on his chest, the hand whose fingers he was toying with lightly._

"_You were right. We should have done this years ago."_


	2. Chapter 2

She was weak.

That was the only reason she could find to explain why she was pulling up outside Grissom's townhouse in the middle of the morning to research butterflies.

She could have left it, gone home and slept. She had internet, she would have survived, she would have been fine.

But this was Grissom, who she had never been able to really deny, which was why she was inside his home- feeling slightly awkward and slightly thrilled, with her shoes off, sitting on his rug surrounded by various thick butterfly reference books and Grissom was so close, so attentive that she was just going to ignore the oddity of the moment and enjoy it.

"_Are you sure about this?"_

Grissom had sat close to her, closer than an employer should but no closer than she invited him to. He had cooked her breakfast, looking like a true geek in an apron that could have come from the lab and matched her flirting word for word. Perhaps if she closed her eyes it would be easy to pretend that she was still an awkward grad student with no true path, flying in every direction at once and that he was still the sweet and oddly intense guest lecturer he had been when they first met, feeding her need to learn and, accidentally maybe, the needs that she would one day think could only be sated by him.

His kiss had not shocked her when it landed tentative and soft on her lips. If she was honest, a small part of her had been expecting it, and had been since the tense phone call that he called her to Las Vegas with.

It was him though; and if she were blind she would still know him from this kiss. His lips testing and definite, his taste warm and bitter from the coffee he had served her, the remains of the brown sugar glaze from the pancakes a sweet tease on her tongue.

She was in a bad position, she knew. Making out with her boss- her hot and cold boss, on his living room floor and she'd thought briefly about getting up and out but then he'd moved down to her neck, soft sweet pressure and the brush of his beard over her collarbone, and she had never been able to come back from that.

p>

One heavy warm arm around her middle and the rest of the man almost hanging over the side of his bed was what she found when she woke. Sara had almost laughed at the informality of it - he was so constrained awake that it made sense.

Dappled in the yellow light that leaked in at the edges of his blinds his big boned frame had looked magnificent, a sleeping lion. The pale bed sheets contrasting his darker skin, and she resisted the urge to run her hands over him.

The strain of life left his features in sleep, lending him the illusion of youth, but without his personality animating his face he looked older too. It jarred her.

_Sara tried to pull back, but his lips were on her neck doing delicious things that she lacked the will to put a stop to. How many nights had she dreamt of this? And here it was finally happening, and God help her, she was not backing away now. _

_Her hands explored his shoulders, his neck, caught her fingers in the curls at his nape, pulling him down into her, but his hands were on her waist pulling her up into him and she let him lead them up till they were standing, awkward and shy with the knowledge of their next move._

In his sleep he smiled mildly into his pillow and Sara wondered absently as she dressed if he was dreaming about roller-coasters then frowned, hoping it wasn't a woman.

But it was hours past noon and she had sleep to catch up on and laundry to do and an aversion to Grissom waking and finding her still there, if she couldn't predict his reaction, she'd rather avoid it completely. The morning had been too good to lose to him scowling and pulling away.

Maybe when she could gage his mood, she could enquire as to an encore.

When she licked her lips she could still taste the salt of him.

P>

Her work with her PEAP councilor had moved past her brush with alcohol as a coping device, almost through the issues that Nick's incident had brought to the surface and, pleased with her own growth, had begun exploring other facets of her life that affected her personality.

Two years of her life seemed lost to a dark tunnel of doubt and pain. Her childhood's dark scars had spread and clung to unrelated parts of her life, damaging her relationships and leaving her claustrophobic and scared to move beyond the four walls of her apartment.

One of the many boxes she had vowed to get outside of.

"_I used to be better."_

"_Is that a medical diagnosis or a comment on your abilities?"_

_Sara sighed as she walked over to the large window in her therapist's office. The view was wide and faced away from the tangle of the city. Just being able to cast her gaze over something not splashed in neon lighting soothed her, helped her gather her scattered thoughts._

"_Maybe better is the wrong word. I wasn't so…scared. I'd do things just to be able to say I had. I didn't over-analyse every move I made. Didn't think my life to death."_

"_It sounds like you miss that."_

"_No, not really. It was probably just as unhealthy as how I live now. I just wish I had some of that fearlessness back again."_

_The manicured garden below seemed like a good metaphor for it all. The vast expanse of green and strategically plotted blooms of colour spread wide._

_To look out at them always gave Sara a sense of untapped potential blooming large within herself. _

p>

She spent that night at work caught in a state between panic and satisfaction, alternately congratulating and cursing her moment of spontaneity. She hoped Grissom would not react badly but deep down she knew that if she had the chance she would not change what they had done.

Grissom hadn't been in contact, not to reassure but not to rebuke either. She could only assume that they were ok. She would know one way or the other soon enough.

He could call. She would wait. Anticipating him answering her in the monotone he favoured for moments he found too awkward or intense sat like a cannonball inside her chest.

p>

The next night she had put herself together with an even clearer eye on professionalism though. She felt the need to justify herself through her wardrobe, and wondered if Catherine ever felt the same urge - a moment of grand reveal to a colleague leading to an extreme retraction behind the safety of a dress-code.

It was important to her for Grissom to see only CSI Sara. Not the woman he lay back on his bed and traced with his fingertips as though fragile evidence.

She almost hesitated as she arrived for assignments, finding him already enthroned at the head of the table. Head pulled up and expression as neutral as she could manage she'd entered, casting out a greeting. His gaze was cool and unaffected, neither good Grissom nor bad Grissom but something flashed for a moment in the back of his eyes as he looked at her, before sinking away and it hooked her in just a little more than she wanted.

"_Are you sure?"_

"_Yes Sara. I have more resources at home anyway."  
_


End file.
